To amuse and enlighten

Editor’s Note: Politics vs. Issues

The Smatter, Animal Style

As The Smatter enters its second month of existence, it has gathered a small but loyal following. A few of you have commented on posts or on our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/TheSmatter), and I encourage you to continue to interact with the content and ideas presented herein. Especially check out the Discussion tab on Facebook, which will mirror the topics in our “That’s the Way You Debate” series. I hope to aggregate reader input on the issues and inject it into our debates where appropriate.

In the spirit of openness, I’ll share some feedback I’ve gotten from a few dear readers:

Your site is really funny. It’s supposed to be funny, right?

That Smatter dope is the shizznit!

Your blog is entertaining, but I’m not that into politics.

Hold on. Politics? I’m not that into politics either. We discuss issues here, and personalities, and products, and anything else that might deserve rational discussion or good-natured derision.

Our motto, “To amuse and enlighten”, implies not everything will or should be taken seriously. Sometimes the issue will be heavy and somber, like health care reform. Sometimes I’ll post ridiculous commentary on fashion that is self-indulgent and utterly fluffy. Sometimes we’ll amuse, sometimes we’ll enlighten, sometimes both. Sometimes we’ll fail miserably and no one will really notice, because our audience, while indisputably intelligent and attractive, is only a few hundred strong.

When I registered to vote at age 18, I registered as a Republican. I was poor, and I saw on TV that Republicans were rich. I applied the transitive law of wealth and concluded that if I became a Republican I too would be rich. I had not read much about causality and/or correlation.

Today, I’m nothing. Sure, I’m fiscally conservative and socially liberal, as noted here. I vote for solutions, not people. I belong to no party, not even Independent (too ironically conformist).

My insistent yet amiable pandering to capitalism is seemingly exclusionary and hypocritical. The point is not to exclude, but to incite debate. Communists are welcome. Everyone is welcome. Except Glenn Beck.